We were lucky to catch up with Kaitlyn Coleman and Nikki Contini-Hume. recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kaitlyn and Nikki, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
We pride ourselves in being wine educators for our clients. As certified sommeliers with two masters degrees and twenty years of careers in education we engage our clients in multisensory wine experiences. As former educators we know that not everyone learns the same way, so providing a learning experience that hits all of your senses broadens the reach of the experience.
There is a snobbery associated with sommeliers, so we aim to talk with our clients so they can develop the foundational skills of wine tasting. Through our wine tasting experiences we prompt our clients to get to know their own palates.
We hold a state liquor license and serve all of the state of Ohio. We work with all budgets and all palettes to bring the best of the vineyard to those sitting at our table. Without a brick and mortar location we do lack the ability for customers to just pop in and grab a bottle. Being welcomed into our clients homes and businesses helps us to build relationships that allows us to then select wines on their behalf. Through these relationships, new patrons have come into our circle and allowed us to expand on our goal of wine education.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Our story begins with a group of friends enjoying a bottle (or two) of wine around a campfire, two of whom were teachers and were looking to venture onto a new path. Both of us had lived in respected wine regions along the west coast for a period of time: Nikki lived in San Francisco,CA and Kaity in the Portland, OR suburbs. With a combined almost twenty years in teaching and a passion for wine we decided why not combine these two areas into one: teaching others about wine.
We spent a whole weekend immersed in trying to figure out how to make this vision come to life: researching liquor licenses in Ohio, driving around finding locations, deep diving into the amount of wine Ohioans consume, and identifying prospective programs to become certified sommeliers. After the weekend, we came up with a concrete plan for how to make this happen and who we needed to contact to make it a reality in the foreseeable future. Utilizing a lawyer we were also able to navigate whatever obstacles popped up on our road to fruition.
We realized that becoming certified sommeliers was crucial to establishing this business. During Covid, we each studied for and passed both their WSET level 1 and 2 exams through Napa Valley Wine Academy and also their American Wine Expert Certification. With two masters degrees in education and these new credentials and certifications in wine, we knew we could impart the knowledge necessary to clients to understand the wine they are consuming more.
Drop-In Wine offers unique in-home wine tasting experiences for clients. We bring the best of the vineyard to our clients through our wine tastings. Using a prospective client’s likes and dislikes regarding wine and a set budget, we pride ourselves in choosing wines they will thoroughly enjoy. Our experiences are not just ones where we talk at our clients for two hours about the wines they are drinking. By having clients sip and assess the wine in a variety of ways, our experiences are both tactile and interactive.
One of the things we are most proud of is that clients trust our opinions in choosing wines for their personal collections. We have had clients call on us to help them choose wines for dinner parties and special events they have coming up. When we focus on wines for our social media, our readers take what they have learned from us doing our tastings and trust our comments and contact us to order wines. We are very proud of the fact that each event is a unique experience in itself and that even our regulars always walk away learning something new or experiencing something new every time.
Having a state liquor license is what makes us different from other in-home wine tasting businesses. This makes it possible to work with national and international alcohol distributors to explore tens of thousands of wines. Some in home tasting competitors have a limited portfolio to taste from and their hosts lack the wine credentials to properly inform on what they’re tasting. Wine-shops who do have liquor licenses and offer wine-tastings tend to have larger crowds and can feel rushed. By doing this in the comfort of our client’s homes we can get to know their palettes and provide a more individualized approach to teaching them about their wines.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Funny story, we actually didn’t meet until about two days before Nikki and her husband’s (Matt’s) wedding (during Lebron’s first decision) as she was hosting a get together for the wedding party. It was quite intimidating to be introduced to a group of friend’s already well established, since Nikki, her husband, and now mine (Ryan) were extremely close and were all even roommates at one time. The two men really bonded as they started their careers in the finance world. However, we didn’t become extremely close until both couples relocated to the West Coast (Nikki to San Francisco, CA and Kaity to Portland, OR) and had children. We would plan strategic visits to each other and always brought a bottle (or two MAYBE three) of wine to share and spend some holiday’s together (Thanksgiving and Fourth of July) when traveling back to our home state’s wasn’t possible. Those visits included going to Napa and Sonoma in California and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. We quickly bonded over raising children so far away from family and what good wines we were currently drinking! When Nikki moved back to Ohio, we continued to remain close by planning Facetime calls with each other several times a month. With our two oldest so close in age we really were able to bond over our common motherhood struggles like sleep schedules, toddler tantrums, and picky eaters! We really saved each others’ sanity so we didn’t feel alone as new moms!
It wasn’t until covid hit that we decided to venture into this new career. I (Kaity) got stuck in New Jersey when lockdown hit because of a death in the family. In order to get me and my young children safely back to our home in Oregon, my husband rented an RV and we decided to stop and see Nikki, Matt, and their kids for a day. One day turned into four, and one night sitting around a fire pit, after consuming a few bottles of wine, we came up with the dream of Drop-In Wine. With the whole world in lockdown, those Facetime calls became more frequent and had changed their tune to business planning, curriculum study dates together, and house hunting!
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
Our first love and main career was teaching. Both of us are former teachers with 20+ experience between us. However, when Covid hit it really changed how we felt about teaching full-time in a conventional classroom setting. Living on the west coast we both developed a passion for wine. Yes, we loved drinking it but we both really grew an appreciation for the whole process of how grapes are grown and the complexity of how wine is made. And from there our second love, wine, was born.
When we moved back to the East Coast we noticed the lack of a wine presence in Ohio and decided we wanted to create wine tastings with an educational component (because that was our first love) to teach others what they are drinking and why they like it or not. And it is our hope to introduce people to new and interesting wines from the vast world around us and expand their palates at the same time!
Basically, we turned our side passion into our full-time passion. We left the classroom and started Drop-In Wine full-time. We work with local distributors to create unique wine tastings and experiences for couples and large groups looking to engage and evolve their tasting palate.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dropinwine.com
- Instagram: @dropinwine
- Facebook: facebook.com/DropInWine
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/drop-in-wine
Image Credits
Erin Brown Photography